"The undead army has stopped?While Roland was fighting the undead army by himself, everyone else didn"t know about it, as the battle was taking place in Roland"s alternate dimension. Still, it was obvious to everyone that the undead army had stopped in its tracks.
But for these ordinary people, no matter what the reason was, it was naturally a good thing that the undead army had stopped attacking. That would mean more time to prepare.
Currently on Starwood City"s town walls, temporary acting commander Salima was speaking to a young man who was even younger than he appeared. When Timlad told her about his expectations, his statements caused an angry uproar from everyone else immediately.
"You"re telling us to stop working on the town walls? At this critical junction?"
"No, no, I"m just asking you to focus on troop organization and resource preparation. Just leave the heavy work like solidifying the town walls and building more defense weaponry to me."
"You? A little brat who hasn"t even finished going through p.u.b.erty yet…?"
While everyone was in an angry uproar, Salima stopped her subordinates from questioning Timlad. In fact, she asked her question with delight in her voice.
"It must be that person. Did His Highness the Holy Knight make that decision? Did he decide to personally intervene?"
Timlad was surprised for a moment as he realized that she must have inferred Roland"s ident.i.ty due to the unique combination of t.i.tles she used to refer to "Karo" the Holy Knight. He hesitated for a moment, but with his direct personality, he felt that it was much better to be upfront.
"Yes, it was that person who made the decision. And, he"s currently stalling the undead army by himself. As for how long he can stall them, he said that he could only try his best, but he should be able to stall them for at least three or four hours."
"Stall? Even that person is only capable of stalling the undead army? He can"t directly destroy the undead army?"
Timlad shook his head, not intending to explain. Just what did an Undead Emperor with thousands of years of acc.u.mulated power represent? Not to mention, that Undead Emperor had invaded with every single elite troop in her dimension. That would be a challenger that not even a True G.o.d would want to take on. That would be enough power to take on any human country.
Besides, would the problem really be solved even if Undead Emperor Conservation was defeated? There was still the issue of the ruins actually being a Sky Tower. It was possible that a new enemy might appear at any moment.
Timlad was quite clear that if Roland truly could win here, Roland wouldn"t have asked him to come here and solidify the town walls and construct temporary defense mechanisms.
"…Time is limited, so let me take care of things. Give command of every single engineer here to me, as well as all the Four Elemental Swordcasters. The Swordcasters are good for half an engineer and enchanter each."
Three super small airs.h.i.+ps were slowly descending from the sky. They opened their freight doors, releasing several dozen medium-sized robots. The robots" gears constantly clanked as they changed their forms, adjusting into the most appropriate form for work.
Right after the robots landed, Timlad had them immediately begin dismantling the magic cannons on the town walls. The magic cannons would be completely useless against the undead army.
"By the way, my name is Timmy Lade. You can call me Timmy, or Lade. If I knew that I would meet with such an unlucky incident, I would have brought along the entire South Star squadron."
Since the airs.h.i.+ps were kicking up a small windstorm, people could only talk to each other via shouts. As Timlad shouted, he commanded the airs.h.i.+ps to descend. In the next three hours, it was time for Timlad, the "Miracle Creator", to show his stuff.
"The Father of Iron?"
"Miracle Hand Timlad!!"
Everyone now had unmistakable expressions of delight. Even the veteran warriors who were just scolding this young brat now had expressions like they were viewing their savior.
Salima was the only one who worriedly looked into the distance at the undead army. The fact that the greatest engineer in the world, Miracle Hand Timlad, was taking orders from that person was yet another circ.u.mstantial piece of evidence pointing at Karo"s true ident.i.ty. But if even Roland was unable to ensure absolute victory, just how difficult was the opponent to deal with this time!?
Salima was also a little afraid after the fact, since she almost treated him as a spy. If they had actually fought…
"I hope that he"s just as magnanimous as in the legends, that he won"t care about such a small matter."
Magnanimous? If any single person who was familiar with Roland heard such a statement about him, they would probably break out into uproarious laughter. Wasn"t Roland"s most famous trait forever holding a grudge over even the smallest things? Legends were truly so unreliable.
"Ha, the weak should just kneel before me!"
But unlike everyone"s expectations of my difficult struggles, I was having an easier and easier time fighting in my personal world of h.e.l.l.
This was a dimension which was a logical contradiction. Although this place was connected to h.e.l.l, the residents of h.e.l.l were unable to enter here, nor was I able to enter h.e.l.l through this world. I originally thought that this place would only be of limited a.s.sistance to me in my battle. I hadn"t expected that in this fight against the undead army, this sub-dimension of h.e.l.l was actually a perfect counter to the undead army, especially due to the dimensional laws here.
The most difficult part of any undead army to deal with, the never-ending sea of low-level skeletons, had started rebelling. All the mid-level elite undead now had to be worried about being killed off by their former subordinates. But, suddenly, a tremendously powerful will descended upon this place. All the chaotic undead"s soulfires suddenly started flickering to an identical beat again.
The powerful will directly started controlling her own army as the mid- and high-level undead had lost control. Under her personal soul contracts and connections, the low-level undead came under her control again.
I could sense that behind the endless undead army, far in the distant mountains, a powerful soul blazing like the sun had her attention on me.
"Hey, old acquaintance. If you don"t like it, why don"t you come out and play?"
However, she didn"t respond to me at all. The only reaction from her was her restoration of order as the undead army slowly began proceeding forward again.
"Tsk, as expected, she wasn"t fooled so easily…"
An Undead Emperor with her entire plane"s worth of undead was a fighting force more than enough to destroy any country. There would be countless undead units under her command. n.o.body would ever win a battle of attrition against the undead. There was forever only one method that was the simplest and the most effective when fighting the undead—directly killing the undead"s leader.
Although it was a nearly impossible task to ignore the entire undead army while slaying an Undead Emperor, it would still be far easier to kill her first rather than first destroying her entire army before finally taking down Conservation herself—at least in theory.
But, it was quite evident that Undead Emperor Conservation, who had changed her name from Zero for some reason I didn"t know, had no intention of personally coming here to deal with me. She just kept sending endless amounts of cannon fodder to die.
"Has she already seen through the weakness of my dimension…"
That was right, there was a weakness to my dimension, and an incredibly obvious one at that.
Compared to common Soul Worlds, my personal h.e.l.l dimension"s advantage was that it actually affected the real world, and it could even be used as a storehouse and a base. My dimension wouldn"t be rejected by Eich"s natural laws, and maintaining its existence didn"t even require me to pay any mana expenditure. But if I wanted to fight with it like a real Soul World, there was one huge weakness.
"My h.e.l.l dimension isn"t a real Soul World. It"s a new realm of its own that"s outside the rules of existence. Although it has borders, it"s unable to stop others from naturally walking out of it."
I chose to summon my personal h.e.l.l dimension here at this chokepoint precisely because I hoped the narrow mountainous terrain would limit the undead army"s possible vectors of invasion. That was also why I had Mars and his army standing behind me to block any scattered forces that got through.
But, it was only natural that the enemy would see through my world"s weakness. After all, my personal h.e.l.l dimension could only cover a limited area. It would be impossible for me to drag the entire undead army into my dimension. And, the moment that an undead managed to exit my dimension simply by crossing the border, the enemy would instantly learn that my dimension had no way of stopping anyone from exiting.
But of course, I couldn"t stand by and simply watch the undead breaking past my personal dimension. Mars was also far too much of a novice to fight by himself against the full forces of an Undead Emperor. And so, I used yet another ace card of mine, an ace card that I had prepared several years ago.
"…Although I can"t hook the big fish, it"s nice as well to catch a few small shrimp. Appear, Yongye City!"
The clouds in the sky suddenly parted as a floating black city descended through the opening.
This city was enveloped entirely in black mist. This city was where Mars resided, and where my undead rested. And, the most obvious trait of this city was that numerous tall towers could be seen within it. And, the tallest tower of them all was giving off an imposing aura, with mana wavelengths indicating that it was far more powerful than any SemiG.o.d archmage. If you only looked at its mana reserves, even a t.i.tan wouldn"t be able to compare.
"Silly cat, get ready. Three, two, one, super tactical spell… Death to the Undead!"
My voice combined with my magical pet"s as Harloys who sat in the strongest tower"s control room strengthened a black ball of magical light with the mage tower"s magical pressurizer. The entire city"s magical power served to power this spell up. Finally, a tremendous black ball of magic appeared in the sky, resembling a black sun. Death to the Undead, a common low-level undead magic spell used for killing low-level undead, had been upgraded to become a super forbidden spell!
A pitch-black light showered the battlefield from the top of the tower. The black sun slowly descended. Just the outer bounds of where the black light reached had immeasurable killing power against the undead. Any undead that came into contact with it was immediately vaporized into dust. Those souls finally received freedom, and joyfully escaped the battlefield.
That was right, Yongye City, this floating city was my personal mage tower!
*Boom!*
Suddenly, a beam of light came from far behind the undead army and directly struck the tip of the tallest tower. Although this beam of light didn"t break through Yongye City"s defenses, it created a tremendous explosion outside of Yongye City.
"This was from a distance of several dozen kilometers. Just how did she accomplish it from such a great distance? Her long-distance magic attack spell actually didn"t have a high cost a.s.sociated with it?"
Another beam of light arrived right after, proving that the first direct hit was no coincidence. It seemed that Conservation was indeed capable of surpa.s.sing the limitations of s.p.a.ce to use a super-long-distance magical attack.
*Boom!*
But, this time, her beam of light directly exploded before even reaching Yongye City. The city"s mage tower defense mechanisms had been activated, and shot fire lasers that ignited Conservation"s beam of light.
"It would seem that she"s even stronger than the last time I fought her."
Although I was astonished at how powerful she had become, a mysterious excitement caused my blood to begin boiling. As expected of an Undead Emperor, she was capable of overturning all normal magical theories upside-down, turning the impossible into reality.
This was such a familiar battlefield situation to me. Cannon fodder would fight each other on the frontlines, while the archmages shot spells at each other from a great distance. This was the cla.s.sical undead mage fighting style.
"Last time, neither of us was at our strongest. This time, let us have a good fight in the style of Undead Emperors."